Thomas Allen Harris talks with director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun about Abouna.

The country of Chad has produced three feature films, two of which — Bye Bye Africa (1999) and Abouna (2002) — were directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, a native of Chad, now living in Bordeaux.

Abouna is the story of two brothers, 15-year-old Tahir and 8-year-old Amine, who wake up one morning to find that their father has mysteriously left their home in a small town in Chad. The brothers decide to find him and wander through the town. Deeply disturbed by his sudden disappearance, they begin to hang about, play hooky and go to the movies, where one day, they think they recognize their father on screen. They manage to steal the reels and look for his face on the film, but the police arrest them.

Overwhelmed and exhausted their mother sends her sons away to a koranic school from which the boys attempt to escape and are consequently treated more harshly. A tender respite is offered through the love to two women; sickly Amine is coveted by a school cook, while Tahir falls for a beautiful deaf-mute girl. However, Tahir’s sexual awakening tragically divides the pair.

Filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris (That’s My Face) met Mahamat-Saleh Haroun at the Mayflower hotel in Manhattan in the spring of 2003. Haroun was in town for the premier of Abouna, which was being screened at New Directors/New Films and at the African Film Festival. They spoke about Abouna, African cinema and the politics of being an African filmmaker based in France.

Thomas Allen Harris: In Arabic, the film’s title means “Our Father.” Where did the idea for the film originate, and what is the significance of the title?

Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: In Chad, most people listen to the radio because there are not a lot of newspapers, and most people don’t read anyway. And on the radio, there are frequently communications from families looking for a father or a husband who has left home and disappeared. It’s very commonplace. Every day you hear this kind of communication saying, “We are looking for Mr. Haroun, and we don’t have any news from him. His wife is waiting for him, and she hasn’t had any news for two weeks, so we are going to announce a divorce.”

So the film’s title is a reference to being fatherless. But “Our Father” in a Catholic or Christian way, of course, is also a reference to God.

Harris: How does it read to people who are Muslim?

Haroun: In Islam people read it like the biological father. There is not this second meaning. But I think the film does allow room for meditation, for viewers to reflect. It’s not a particularly fast entertainment. So I think even if you are not Christian, the sense of “God” is always present even in the literal meaning.

Harris: But isn’t there also the issue of colonialism? The father — the organizing principal — leaves, and then what happens?

Haroun: Yeah, yeah. And that’s the most important thing for me: even if those responsible for our history leave, one must go on with one’s life. There’s a kind of emptiness after the father’s departure. But you have just to build yourself and be the center of your own life in this emptiness. And that’s what the older one of the kids tries to do in the film.

I was in London recently, and I heard that Africa is a “desperate continent” — something like that — and you go crazy when you hear that. For me, the most important thing for viewers to know is that the majority of Africans who live in Africa are trying to give sense to their lives, trying to build something, trying to study, to learn and to quietly get over these horrible things, their struggles.

If you don’t have a job, you don’t exist socially, you don’t have an identity. And so we have to respect these people who leave to look for jobs. Everybody has to look for a job, it’s the capitalist way.

Harris: Do you see the father in Abouna as a symbol of exile?

Haroun: Yes, he is a symbol of exile, but also a symbol of the emptiness and the problems he leaves behind for his kids. Because they are fatherless, there is no connection to history. So everyone must work harder to connect, and to be responsible for the coming generation.

In Africa, there is a word for big brother, even if you are an elder, you always have a big brother like your neighbor or your cousin or someone who tells you, “Stop, don’t do that because it’s bad.”  So there is also the question of a transmission: How can you build something if the older generation doesn’t take their responsibility [for collective memory] seriously?

Harris: What I really loved about the film was the sometimes silent relationship between the brothers. They are not so close in age, there is a difference between them, but there are some beautiful moments where things are unsaid as they walk down the street. Can you talk a little bit about how you worked with those two kids to get these moments that were so precious and pure?

Haroun: The older boy, Ahidjo Mahamat Moussa, played in my movie Bye Bye Africa. He started acting at 7 or 8 years old. When I was casting, I called him and I said, “I’m going to make the choice of the kid to be your brother. So you have to sit with me, and help me choose which one can be your brother.” And he said okay. And then I saw just five kids, and every time we saw one, he said, “No, this one is not good, I don’t feel it. And when he saw Hamza Moctar Aguid, he said, “Yeah, I feel something. He could be my brother.” And I said, “Okay, I trust you, and you will work together and try to make a good movie.” It’s like life, you fall in love because you look and you feel something. And sometimes you say, “Voila”.

Harris: So there was a real connection.

Haroun: Yeah. And then we started to work — I put them together for two weeks, eating together, living in the same room, something like that — and it was really very pleasant, you know. And also, they both know kids who have lost a father, so it was not difficult for them to interpret the script.

Harris: I had read some articles about you before I saw the film, so I knew that you were very interested in shooting 35mm because you wanted something that was much more painterly rather than digital video. But something that wasn’t discussed in many of these other articles is that there was always this kind of haunted sense in the film.

Haroun: I worked with my Ethiopian cinematographer, Abraham Haile Biru, trying to get this morning light in Africa, like the morning sun on a tide pool, things like that. And also, we had a typical light in this part of Africa called “Sahel” — very gold light, it falls in the desert where it rains just one season per year, and then all becomes gold and there is no water. We worked with these colors, just trying to create a kind of harmony. For me, it’s just like a painting: I put red here, yellow there, and something like a river couler.

And about the shots, I think there is a particular way of shooting people in Chad, because when you are a man, even at 10 years of age, you cannot enter a woman’s room, you can only look in the door and see the silhouette of a person. So the door itself becomes very important. It also gave me the opportunity to have this distance.

Harris: So sometimes it is emotional distance, sometimes physical distance.

Haroun: Yeah, yeah.

Harris: So that was a political decision, but there is also the politics of being a filmmaker from Chad who lives in Paris and gets his money from France. Could you talk a little about the politics of being a West African filmmaker whose financial base is France.

Haroun: Well, I’m based in France because of my own story. My story is in France, with my kids. So it is my own destiny. But I have to deal with this reality.

Harris: How does it influence the way in which you make your films?

Haroun: It doesn’t. For this movie, we got money from ARTE, and from the Hubert Bals Fund. And also TeleChad. They don’t have a lot of money, TV Chad, but they helped me produce. But no one ever asked me to change something in my script because they gave me money; they supported it because they liked the script.

The biggest challenge faced by African cinema today is very specific. It’s a question of regularity; one year you have two movies produced and then for five years there is no production. There are not many movies from Chad because we had war and all the cinemas were destroyed. That’s maybe why we have things to tell to others because for a long time we didn’t say anything, we were just fighting. We are conscious of creating something, of building something. It is showbiz, afterall, so if you are not visible, people forget you.

And so a group of us decided to create this association in Paris called the Guild of the African Directors and Producers in order to address this issue, and to support each other.

Harris: Let’s say Sembene is the godfather of African cinema. Where would you place this group in the history of African cinema?

Haroun: I think we are the new generation. We work together and we are not in competition, I think, and we are trying to build something and also to help young filmmakers. We are conscious of our own mortality, so we are committed to teaching things to our assistants, just to continue the work and to continue to make images. I don’t think Sembene did that; he worked alone. I think that is the biggest difference between us and the older generation: For us, producing is more important. Something compels us to produce, produce, produce — and then, at least occasionally, a good movie is made. Every film is a step, so helping out even if it is a bad movie it is not a problem for us.

Harris: The group has members in Europe and in Africa?

Haroun: Yes. In London as well.

Harris: Is it mostly West African filmmakers?

Haroun: It is open to everybody. We have guys from Nigeria, from Zimbabwe. We have a connection with all countries, and we really just try to help each other and to provide information. And to push everyone to do his best. Because every time you make a movie, it becomes “the” African movie.

Harris: Tell me about your new project.

Haroun: I love music; Abouna has a soundtrack by Ali Farka Touré. My new film is a musical documentary about Orchestra Baobab, a Senegalese group. They stopped making music for 20 years, and they started again two years ago. Now they have two CDS on the market. The film opened in London in November. It was produced by Tequila Gang, the same company that co-produced Buena Vista Social Club.

Thomas Allen Haris is currently in production on a new documentary, Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela. Abouna is being distributed in the U.S. by Leisure Time Features.